


Of Love and Loss

by vials



Category: Our Kind of Traitor - John le Carré
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Original Character(s), gratuitous headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-31 19:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21244649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vials/pseuds/vials
Summary: All the women Luke Weaver has ever loved, for better or for worse.
Kudos: 1





	Of Love and Loss

**Author's Note:**

> (From the backlog of fic -- 2017 batch.)

**Bianca**

Luke Weaver had always fallen in love easily and perhaps he should have known it at age twelve, a mere one year before he was sent off to an all boys’ boarding school and was able to push the thoughts away for six years. Maybe if it hadn’t been for that opportunity for denial he might have come to terms with it sooner, acquired the tools he needed to navigate the waters a little easier, or maybe that was just how he was. Perhaps his love was like his loneliness, innate to him and constantly present, never satisfied.

Bianca was tall for a girl and especially for a girl of her age. She stood a half foot above Luke and was uncomfortable with her height, awkward and gangly. She had long dark hair and hazel eyes and she always got into trouble for wearing rings when the school dress code forbade them. She was in Luke’s class and while she wasn’t a friend – Luke had none of those – she was at least pleasant to him. Luke loved her with all his heart.

She sat to the right and a row in front of him during religion class, and Luke was glad for it. From where he sat he could see her in profile as she lounged against the wall; how she fiddled with her hair as she jotted down notes, twirling it through her fingers. Despite trying to tell himself that it was stupid to think this much about her, and about how it shouldn’t matter, because he had never craved contact like this before (or at least, he hadn’t acknowledged it yet), it was all he could do to concentrate on his lessons.

Their teacher, a Mr Johnson, was a virtual sadist who quite clearly hated his job and should have quit his job years ago. He picked on all his students but left the quieter ones alone more often; thus Luke and Bianca escaped most of his wrath. All that changed on a rainy Friday afternoon, when Bianca and her small friend group of two other girls had arrived into class gigglier than usual, leading Johnson to notice them and perhaps realise the potential for fresh meat.

“Do try to enter my classroom more quietly in future,” he deadpanned, as he passed out the papers for that day. “It is a place of learning, and not a witch’s coven.”

“Sorry, sir,” Bianca said, and with any other teacher that would have probably been the end of it.

“Your exams are approaching in a little over a month,” Johnson continued, in the annoying way he did where he sounded as though he were addressing the entire class but was really delivering a continued personal lecture. “So it would be useful to take things a bit more seriously now. That includes being sensible, being mature, acting appropriately in class, and _that_ includes not eating in class. Bianca, what is that in your mouth?”

Bianca swallowed guiltily. “Nothing, sir.”

“Do you take me for an idiot?” Johnson snapped, and finally it dawned on the usually quiet Bianca that there would be no dropping it, no apologising her way out of it. It broke Luke’s heart to see her look so worried, or at least it felt like it. He knew nothing about heartbreak then, after all.

“No?” Bianca replied, confused.

“So what was it?”

“A sweet, sir,” she said quietly. “I still had it in my mouth from lunch. I didn’t eat it in class.”

“But you chewed and swallowed it,” Johnson replied, now standing in front of her desk. “Does that not constitute eating?”

“I didn’t unwrap it,” Bianca protested, before realising it was no use. Luke had always known she was smart. 

“Show me the rest of them,” Johnson said briskly.

Bianca, her shoulders sagging, reached into her blazer pocket.

Starburst were called Opal Fruits then, and it was a bag of those that Bianca pulled out, re-sealable and almost full. Luke loved them then and he never stopped; he would always remember the rush of excitement he felt when he realised that when it came to confectionary, they were apparently compatible. His excitement soon turned to dread as Johnson snatched up the bag and popped it open, plucking a small wrapped sweet out and placing it down in front of the girl sitting beside Bianca.

“I should state,” he said, as he moved up the row, placing a sweet on each desk as he did so, “that I have no issue with people bringing sweets into my classroom, provided that they bring enough to share. I think that seems fair, don’t you?”

A purple sweet was placed in front of Luke and he stared at it guiltily. Around him, with laughter, the class agreed with Johnson’s theory. Luke glanced at Bianca. She was bright red. When the bag, now empty aside from one sweet, was placed back on her desk, Luke was mortified to see her eyes shone under the classroom lights.

“Do you think it’s fair, Bianca?” Johnson asked, and Bianca kept her eyes on her desk. “Well?”

“Leave her alone.”

Luke’s voice surprised him. Quiet, as though he hadn’t meant to say it out loud, it was there all the same. The laughter briefly rose and then stopped; Luke could feel eyes on his back.

“What was that, Mr Weaver?” Johnson asked, now looking at him.

Luke swallowed, forcing himself to look up. In his peripheral vison he could see Bianca was watching him, but Luke didn’t dare return her gaze. He was scared of what he would see on her face. With a shock of fear he wondered if he had embarrassed her, but it was too late now.

“I said leave her alone,” Luke repeated, and thankfully his voice was calm. “She’s never done anything wrong in your class before, and she didn’t get them out in your class. Why do you have to be so cruel about it?”

“Do you have a problem with the rules in my classroom, Mr Weaver?”

“No, sir,” Luke said politely. “Just how you enforce them.”

Luke had received a tongue-lashing of his own and lines to boot, but at least the attention had been diverted from Bianca. Luke spent the rest of the lesson shifting awkwardly, wondering why whenever he got the courage to stick up for anything it was never himself and never at the right time. He didn’t know what he would do if he had made things worse for Bianca, and while the rest of the class ate their sweet and forgot about it, Luke continued to agonise, the sweet left uneaten on his desk.

By the time class was finished, Luke realised he was the only one who had left his sweet uneaten. He packed up slowly, sliding his books into his bag and throwing it over his shoulder. In his left hand he picked up the sweet, and then he trailed out of the classroom.

The class had been a double period and so it was home time; Luke wandered along the street at a slow pace, the sweet still clutched in his hand. He was so engrossed in his worries that he didn’t notice Bianca until she had stepped out of the shop right in front of him; it took a further second for him to realise she was with someone else – a boy, in a different school uniform to theirs. They were holding hands, and Luke felt his heart drop. He stood there, staring, frozen to the spot.

“Luke!” Bianca said, before turning to the other boy. “This is who I told you about, the one who yelled at the teacher for me.” She turned back to Luke. “Thanks, by the way. Ugh, he’s such an arsehole.”

“Yeah,” Luke managed, before suddenly sticking his hand out, the purple sweet still there. “Uh, here. I didn’t eat it.”

“Oh, you’re so sweet!” Bianca exclaimed, before smiling apologetically. “But… it’s alright. You can keep it. Graham brought me some more.”

Luke glanced at the other boy, who gave a small smile. “Oh.”

“Thanks for not being a dick, dude,” Graham said.

“No problem,” Luke replied weakly.

He stood for a long moment after they left, something heavy settling in his chest. Finally he sighed, his shoulders slumping. Really, he hadn’t known what he had been expecting. What did he think would happen? The whole thing was stupid anyway.

As stupid as he told himself it was, he didn’t let go of the sweet.

**Shania**

University was like jumping into the deep end before he could swim, and Shania was not the best life raft. Boisterous and blonde, Luke loved her as much as he feared her. She was loud and excitable and showed up at unexpected times, wanting him to come out in the middle of the night for impulsive walks around campus, ordering takeout to his place and showing up shortly before it arrived. They never dated and Luke never expected them to – Shania didn’t date anyone – but sometimes it was like they were, and Luke was happy to pretend. They first slept together after a week of knowing one another and Shania later confessed that she would have gone home with him on the first night but thought that Luke looked so terrified that she took pity on him.

_But of course you’re terrified,_ she had laughed, _you’ve never done this before._ Luke had been mortified but Shania, luckily, had found it endearing.

One night they sat on a bench in the middle of campus, drunk enough that they didn’t feel the cold, the sky cloudless and full of stars above them and not a soul around them. Shania lay with her head on Luke’s lap and Luke sat there contentedly, not daring to move in case he disturbed her.

“You’re sweet, Luke,” she sighed, not for the first time that night.

“So you’ve said,” Luke replied, giving a clumsy smile.

“Do you know you’re in love with me?” she asked, and had he been sober he would have been horrified, felt exposed, sworn up and down that he wasn’t that kind of guy.

“Yeah,” he said instead. “I bet a lot of people are in love with you, right?”

“Right,” she giggled. “I think it’s because I’m such an adventure. Isn’t that what guys look for in uni? An adventure?”

“Some of them.”

“Not you, though.”

Luke smiled again. “I guess not.”

“So,” Shania said, looking up at him with eyes outlined perfectly in black. “What is it that you love me for, then?”

_Everything,_ he wanted to say, but he knew that wouldn’t be good enough. Too vague.

“You’re as fearless as I wish I was,” he said instead, and Shania gave him a tender smile now, reaching up to cup his cheek.

“Oh, Luke,” she said, sighing again. “You make me want to date sometimes, you know that?”

_Then let’s,_ he wanted to say as well, but he knew that would be the wrong answer, too.

**Janie**

“The bar’s closed!”

Janie could barely hear him over the pounding music but a further attempt and some wild gesturing got the point across. It was one of those nights that Luke could barely believe had happened to him, that had started with his floormates deciding he should join them for pre-drinks in the kitchen and lead to now, with him in the union nightclub with his surviving floormates and a few people they had picked up on the way. Among them was Janie, a girl from Luke’s Tuesday and Thursday seminar who Luke had fallen in love with pretty much instantly, because falling in love for Luke was as easy as falling asleep after a day on his feet. Janie had curly brown hair and dark brown eyes and her mother’s brown skin and her father’s Irish voice.

“How’s it closed?” she asked, looking genuinely outraged. “Sure the _place_ isn’t even closed yet!”

“Last orders!” Luke called back. “It’s bullshit!”

Janie’s face suddenly lit up, and without a word she held out her glass, a near-full pint of beer, and raised an eyebrow. They spent the last half an hour of the night sharing it, prolonging it to allow the drunkenness to last longer, screaming along to Queen and finally falling asleep in a hedge outside the union. When they woke up Luke walked her home and it was the first of many walks: around campus at lunch, back from the bars in town, out to collection-only takeouts in the middle of the night.

Luke thought a lot about what could happen, about where things were going, and for a while he thought they might progress to that stage. It wouldn’t be until his next adventure into falling in love that he would realise why he had dragged his heels so much, but at the time he didn’t understand why he couldn’t just ask her if they could make things official. He wanted to, and he got the impression that she wanted him to, but for some reason whenever he tried the words would stick in his throat and he would swallow them down.

Really, she waited longer than Luke had expected. He couldn’t blame her for backing off, and in a strange way he was almost relieved. There was something inside him that was still when it should have been moving, numb when it should have been feeling. When he first saw her in the union bar laughing with Colin he was as happy for her as he was sad for himself. When she and Colin got together it was compounded; Luke found it easy to slip away. He took his walks alone and tried not to think about how quickly he forgot what it felt like to do otherwise.

**Bethany**

When Luke broke up with Bethany he was sure he would regret it one day, when he could make sense of himself again. He was right, too – there was a part of him that always remembered her, always thought about her, and who in hindsight realised that she had been far too good for him. He could truly say that he didn’t deserve her; she was the first woman who had blessed him by loving him back, and he had ruined it because all those things that ruined what he and Janie had before it had even begun had reared their ugly heads again, sudden and overwhelming and too late to talk down.

“So…” Bethany said, smiling sadly. She wasn’t looking at him, her concentration devoted to her toenails, which she was painting as she sat on her bed. Luke hovered awkwardly nearby. “What you’re trying to say is that it’s not me, it’s you?”

It sounded so cliché when she said it like that. Luke wondered if that was why clichés were so cliché: because they happened a lot more than people liked to think.

“Essentially,” he replied, wincing.

“I see.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke blurted out, before predictably his words ran away with him again. “It’s just, you’re not stupid. You must have noticed that I haven’t been fun to be around lately, and that I’ve been difficult to get hold of and I’ve been cancelling plans and all this other crap. It’s unfair to keep stringing you along. You deserve better than me.”

Bethany was silent for a long moment, painting her big toenail a deep purple. Luke watched her, fighting the urge to pace; Bethany had already told him, countless times, that it was infuriating in the tiny dorm room.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” she eventually asked. “I mean, if it’s not me, surely I might be a good ear?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Luke said, sighing. “It’s just… more how I feel, and until I know why I’m feeling that way and work out how to stop, it’s not fair to drag everyone down with me.”

“How do you feel?” Bethany asked, finally looking at him. She looked sad, but her brown eyes were no more teary than usual, which didn’t surprise Luke. Bethany had never been one to show her emotions publicly. “All this talk about how you feel, but you’ve only ever alluded to shit.” She let her gaze linger for a moment, before going back to her toes, applying a second coat. “What’s up?”

Luke floundered. If he told her, it would be the first time he had put words to the thoughts that had been hovering ever since he had first acknowledged something might be getting between he and Janie. He wasn’t even sure if he would know how to put words to them in the first place; already his thoughts were scattering. If he didn’t tell her, it would be cowardly, dishonest. Surely she would think he was looking for an easy excuse, an easy reason to drop her and not look back? Maybe she would even think that he had met another woman, or that he was already with one – a thought which to a young Luke had still been inconceivable. 

“I just…” Luke began, before despite himself he began to pace. “I don’t feel right. I don’t feel normal around you, or around anyone, really. I feel fake and like I’m wasting everyone’s time, or that I just don’t belong there. I want to see you and spend time with you but it’s so much effort to just… be a person that there isn’t room for anything else. I’m sorry, this isn’t making much sense, is it?”

“Not really,” Bethany said apologetically. “Luke, how can you not know how to be a person? You _are_ one. We all make mistakes or have off days but that shit should kind of come naturally.”

“It doesn’t,” Luke immediately said. “I mean, not for me. Every day is an off day for me.”

“Has it always been?”

Luke swallowed. They had called him Luke Alone at school and nothing had changed in his feelings between then and now. He still felt outside of everyone else, still felt disjointed and out of step no matter who he was with, still felt as though everything he said and did was a lie constructed to hide the fact that he was false, wrong, unnatural.

“For a while,” he eventually said, his voice strained. His throat was suddenly tight. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s gotten worse.”

“And you think isolating yourself will help?” Bethany asked, raising an eyebrow as she wiggled her toes, admiring her work in the light. “Sounds like the opposite thing you should be doing.”

“I’m not… isolating myself,” Luke protested, despite the fact he knew what he was doing could probably qualify as just that. “I’m trying to work things out, and while I do that I think it would be best if I didn’t mess anyone else around.”

“Ridiculously noble,” Bethany said, the slightest edge to her voice now – the first time she had hinted that beneath her logic, she might actually be upset.

“I’m not trying to be noble,” Luke said, finally halting his pacing. “I just don’t think it would be fair.”

“You don’t think an extra pair of eyes might help?”

“You already do so much for me.”

“That’s what people in relationships do.”

“You should be enjoying yourself. Not stressing about me.”

Bethany sighed, swivelling around to face him. She hugged her knees to her chest and stared at him, for a moment looking so genuine and familiar that Luke almost felt his resolve shatter. He managed to keep it from his face, his faith that this was the right thing to do when as much of a lost cause as he was holding him steady, and Bethany must have picked up on that part of his thought process because something in her face hardened and she gave a brief nod.

“Alright,” she said, shrugging. “If that’s what you want. But you know where to find me.”

Later Luke would wonder if she had held out for word from him, and, if so, for how long. He got his answer in their final year, when she walked past him in the hallway on the arms of her friends, talking nineteen to the dozen about the assignments that were due. She didn’t notice Luke standing in an alcove filling in a cover sheet for an essay; her eyes briefly travelled over the spot but registered no recognition. It was the answer Luke had been hoping for, but the regret had settled in him that day and it never truly left.

**Sophia**

“You’re an arsehole.”

Sophia was drunk again, swaying in the doorway of Luke’s dorm room, and it was nothing he hadn’t heard before.

“So you’ve said,” he replied curtly. “Extensively.” 

“Do you even give a shit?” she asked, tottering on her heels before cursing and leaning down to unstrap them, bracing herself against the wall with her other hand. “Or are you just going to sit there and barely talk? Again?”

“What do you want me to say?” Luke asked. “You’re just looking for a fight, Soph.”

“Yeah, I’m looking for a fight,” Sophia snapped, before falling heavily into a sitting position, glaring up at Luke from under messy blonde hair. “I remember you used to give me them.”

“I don’t want to anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not a good idea,” Luke sighed, wishing he could hold his tongue but knowing h would ask anyway, knowing before the words had even left his mouth. “Does it really make you feel better, saying all those things to me?”

“You deserve them,” Sophia slurred, and despite the fact that he was over her, despite the fact he told himself he would be firm this time, the words were like a knife.

Luke had never had to do the rejecting before.

“No I don’t,” he said, before swallowing. “You should go home.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sophia said, waving a hand. “Just tell me to fuck off like you always do.”

“I never used to,” Luke snapped. “Just when you only started talking to me when you needed a… a verbal punching bag!”

Sophia leaned her head back, sighing deeply. “You were supposed to love me.”

“I did,” Luke said coldly.

“But you still love Bethany, right?”

“It has nothing to do with that. You have issues, Sophia. You forget I was the one who broke up with her. I wish you’d have the good decency to realise what a fuckup you are and stop dragging me down with you.”

Hearing the words come out of his mouth was an exhilarating as it was terrifying. Luke had never been so harsh before – not with Sophia, not with anyone. For a moment he felt powerful, like nothing anyone could say would hurt him, but in an instant the feeling had drained from him, leaving nothing in its wake but cold dread.

“You’re a fine one to talk,” Sophia spat. “You’re the one dragging me around, acting like you might give a shit and then deciding you don’t.”

Luke wondered if he might have accidentally given her the fight she had been looking for. The dread abruptly changed direction, swinging from fear for Sophia’s emotions to fear for his own. Luke didn’t think he could stand another tirade. Sophia’s hurt was venomous, the kind that lived in the heart of a jealous mother or a bitter wife; it had no place in a girl of twenty but it existed all the same, glinting out at Luke in her glare and itching to take another chunk from him. He wouldn’t let it. He couldn’t let it.

“If you cared so much,” he said, standing and going to the door, “you would see me outside of insulting me when you were drunk.” Her nudged her leg out of the way of the door, and then kicked away the doorstop. “Goodbye, Sophia.”

The door swung closed with a final thud, the click of the lock even louder. Luke, his heart racing, waited for the crying or the yelling to start. He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not when there was only silence.

**Maggie**

If anything, Maggie could have at least been a friend. She certainly thought of Luke in that way, and Luke would have probably been happy for it if it hadn’t been for the fact that he had grown into an all-or-nothing kind of person, the kind of attitude that would be expected from someone who lived his life in extremes. She was his friend but he wanted more; the worst part was that he didn’t think she would be opposed if he would only make his move. He never would, of course.

Her name was Margaret-Anne but she would murder anybody who dared to call her that; she was studying mathematics, had an infectious smile, and had somehow sweet-talked the university administration into putting just ‘Maggie’ on her student ID card. Luke had met her one morning in the obnoxiously long coffee line and, in true Luke fashion, had fallen in love with her immediately – even giving her that last of his spare change so she could also afford the caramel slice cake she had her eye on. Since then they were semi-regular lunch buddies, though despite Maggie’s best efforts, never drinking buddies. Luke had long since given up on that, fed up of feeling as though he were watching everyone have fun from behind glass.

“You should at least show your face for my birthday,” Maggie said, as they sat in the same coffee shop they’d met in, eating sandwiches. “It would be rude not to, really. Birthday girl’s wishes.”

“You know I’m a drag at parties,” Luke said, smiling in the hope that he wouldn’t sound too serious; wouldn’t put a damper on things. There was no point making a fuss. On days like this, with the winter sun glinting off of Maggie’s hair and her fond smile directed at him, Luke would have gone to the ends of the earth had she asked him.

He wondered if he only felt complete when holding a torch for someone; if there was something about being in love that made solitude less lonely and more romantic, like he would rather be alone if he couldn’t be with the person he loved. It was a comforting thought until he was with her, and then he realised that it was just another theory with no substance – he still felt just as alone with her as he did in his room.

“Maybe if you went to more of them, that would change,” Maggie teased, before giving him another smile, this one tinged with something that might be worry. “Is everything alright, Luke?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, you never want to go out. And outside of me, I don’t really see you talking to anyone.”

“We’re not in the same classes,” Luke said casually. “I do talk to other people, I swear. I’m just… not very social.”

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” Maggie told him, and _Christ,_ Luke thought, _you’re a good friend,_ because there was none of Sophia’s passive-aggression in her voice, none of Bethany’s disappointment, none of Shania’s annoyance; it was genuine, understanding. “But if that’s the case, you bring me out for birthday lunch. Yeah?”

“Anything,” Luke said, and meant it.

**Deborah**

Luke went back on his promise to not date until he had sorted himself out, partly because he was that enamoured with Deborah and partly because she made him feel as though he _had_ sorted himself out – which in hindsight should have been his first red flag. Deborah had light brown hair and green eyes and an American mother; she wrote stories for him and sang to him and made him laugh like he hadn’t done in years. She threw herself into love with the same intensity that Luke did; red flag number two, she had left her boyfriend for him.

“I should bring you to the States one day,” she told him, leaning her head on his shoulder two movies into a Disney marathon – her idea, of course, but Luke was just happy to be with her. “I can show you where I lived when I was younger, the little paths through the trees I would wander down to think of story ideas. There was this adorable little stream and…”

Luke could listen to her for hours; she had a way with words and he found himself wandering through her memories with her, vaguely noticing when words like “honeymoon” and “kids” came into it, finding himself alright with the thought. He even found himself believing it – the idea that they would get married and have kids and move to America seemed so logical to a Luke where thoughts of Columbian jungle compounds and Russian organised crime hadn’t even occurred yet. The idea that it had only been four months didn’t seem to be of any concern. Red flag number three: what goes up must come down.

Another four months and she hated him, and Luke was trying to hate her back for the good of his own health. He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened at first, just that she had grown colder towards him, more distant, and despite his best efforts he couldn’t make her see sense.

“This isn’t working,” he had eventually told her, and through her tears and her begging he detected a glint of enjoyment in her eyes, confirming what he had suspected for a while. He had played the dutiful boyfriend well, he had given her that fantasy, been kind and treated her well and spoiled her rotten. Now it was time for what she really craved – the drama, the arguments, getting to be the victim.

With the memory of Sophia at the forefront of his mind, with the thoughts of everything he had done for Deborah not far behind, with the realisation that everything he had so tentatively hoped for had been a lie, a game, Luke stood up.

“Shut the fuck up,” he told her, and there was no guilt this time, no dread.

She looked at him like he’d slapped her, and as he walked away he knew he had handed her the ammunition she needed to cast him as the villain in everything that had happened between them.

A villain he was not, but Luke thought he might well be guilty of being a colossal idiot.

**Emilia, Ashleigh, Stacy, Andrea, Paula, Joanne, Emma, Hettie**

There was an endless parade of them through the years, some of whom Luke remembered well, others who were nothing more than vague memories and feelings. If he had been asked for the name of every woman he had loved he wouldn’t be able to recall them, mainly because he could fall in love with someone in an instant far too fleeting to catch a name: a glance as she got off the train, a woman hurrying down the street in the opposite direction, a glimpse through a flat window as Luke passed by on the upper deck of a double decker bus and saw her laughing in her living room, the warm glow of the lamps safe and inviting compared to the harsh lights inside the bus, and Luke would let his mind wander over what it might be like if he were the person she was laughing with, safe in the warmth, out of sight in the armchair. Countless times he would allow himself to think about what might have been, struggling between nostalgia and grief for something that had never happened, and sometimes as he fell in love with the barista or the train guard or the woman riding her bike in St James’s Park he would wish he could stop, briefly, before he changed his mind and wished instead that he only knew her name.

Luke graduated and floated aimlessly and tumbled into MI6 and found that he was good at it, that his eye for detail and knack for reading people and sensitivity to the slightest change in atmosphere and emotion came in handy. He worked his way up, first as an intelligence analyst and finally to intelligence officer himself, and fell in love all the way. He did not date, and told himself he simply did not have the time.

Emilia worked full time at the local coffee shop and was friendly and bubbly and Greek and, during quiet moments, would bitch animatedly with Luke about bosses and coworkers and bills. Ashleigh was his downstairs neighbour and she minded his mail and gave him a key to her flat so he could walk her adorable Staffie when she was working nights. Stacy worked in analysis at the desk next to him and was drop-dead gorgeous with the sharpest eye in the room. Andrea he had never spoken to but she worked at the Waterstones in Piccadilly and would be in a new department every time he visited, working hard, slim fingers deftly organising books – he had never exchanged words with her but he had noticed things, like she was studying literature and she was Hungarian and she spoke Russian, too, because he had seen her organising books in the Russian section as well. Paula worked in security at the Vauxhall building and always had some story to tell Luke when she saw him, about strange noises or drunks caught on the security cameras. Joanne worked lates at his local Tesco and always had time for a joke and to survey his food and warn him of the dangers of eating too healthily; it was no good, she said, and back home in Nigeria women were expected to be plump, and hearty portions were better, so he had better start actually feeding himself before she came round and did it for him. Emma was in his class during his crash course in Spanish and they spent hours making sense of it all together, and Luke grew to love Emma’s studious frown and neat, rounded handwriting that was so consistent and perfect that it could be a computer font. Hettie was his firearms instructor, ex-military and no-nonsense and with a string of ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends that could rival Luke’s, as he found out over post-work beers.

“I don’t date anymore,” she concluded one evening, pushing her hair behind her ears – it was the first time Luke had seen her with her hair down, and he was enamoured. “I tell myself it’s because I’m too busy, but really I just won’t be able to stand the fucking disappointment.”

Luke laughed and agreed and tried to ignore the fact that he felt as though there was a huge spotlight pointed right at him; later he tried in vain to ignore the loneliness that crept in as he stared up at the ceiling, alone in his flat, and tried to accept that this would be all there was.

And then he met Eloise.

**Eloise**

It was late into an April evening and they were sober, even though they were giggly enough the pass as otherwise. They were running hand-in-hand through the warm spring air, not willing to get the train home just yet; they headed towards the Mall and St James’s, slowing only to giggle at the posh diners in Milo’s, and then they were at the top of the stairs with the street lit up behind them and Eloise looked radiant, smiling at him in a way he never thought he would ever deserve, and he still didn’t think he deserved it but suddenly the box he had been carrying around in his pocket for months felt far too heavy and unbelievably he had pulled it out, dropped to one knee, and somehow he was saying _veux-tu m’épouser_ and the most unbelievable thing of all was that she was crying and laughing and saying _oui, bien sur, oui_ and when they stumbled into the quiet park it was as a newly engaged couple rather than as boyfriend and girlfriend and the world had never made more sense.

Their wedding day was the happiest day of Luke’s life, shared only a few years later by the birth of their son Benjamin, and while the hollow feeling in Luke’s chest never left him sometimes it went silent, and that was more than he had ever experienced before. There were moments where he felt alright, where he felt present, where he felt real and solid and like he had stepped back through the veil, allowed to see what life looked like from the inside. He loved it; he lived for those moments of connection, and he clung to them in the days and weeks when he felt like a stranger in his own body. Eloise never quite understood what made him so distant sometimes but she was the first person who didn’t let him push her away; on the contrary she fought back, sticking close to his side and letting him curl up in the bed, running her fingers through his hair as she read next to him. Luke loved her with everything he had and could never tell her that some days, there was nothing she or anyone could do that would be the right thing.

“You worry me sometimes.”

Eloise spoke to him as she watched him through the mirror, her hands quickly removing her jewellery and makeup. They had paid the babysitter and seen her into her ride, and now with Ben soundly asleep it was time for them to lay down, exhausted from a night out in the kinds of places they had used to poke fun at. It wasn’t their choice – they’d never been big on such extravagance – but it hadn’t been them paying, either. It had been a work thing, and what Luke hadn’t told Eloise yet was that Hector had pulled him aside in the cloakroom and told him he had as good as got the job; the Weavers were headed for Colombia. 

“Oh?” Luke asked carefully, hanging up his jacket.

“I can’t explain it,” Eloise said, giving a small frown. “You weren’t drinking much tonight, were you?”

“I wanted to,” Luke grinned. “But I didn’t dare. Why?”

“I’m just trying to work it out. You can get… odd, sometimes. I guess just wondered… never mind. I don’t think I would be able to describe it.”

“No, try,” Luke said, glancing at her. “I’d hate to worry you.”

Eloise turned around and looked at him with a gaze so focused that Luke thought she probably wouldn’t make a bad spy herself. Just when he was about to break the unbearable silence, she beat him to it.

“Sometimes it’s like you’re unreachable,” she said quietly, slowly, as though she were still carefully choosing her words even as they left her mouth. “Like there’s something missing that blocks you off. It’s always been there, but I think it’s there more now.”

“I didn’t realise,” Luke said neutrally. 

“You would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?” Eloise asked. “I know you can’t tell me certain things involving your work, but what about outside that? You would tell me?”

“Of course I would.”

“So what is wrong, then? Why does this happen?”

Luke continued changing slowly, his mind chewing over the various things he could say but knew he never would. He had barely been able to admit it to himself, knowing that it must surely make him a terrible human being, and with his career on the rise and an important foreign posting imminent, he was going to need Eloise by his side. With that in mind how could he possibly admit even one of the thoughts that reached him in his darkest moments? How could he possibly admit that sometimes he felt so far outside himself that he could barely recognise those he was supposed to love; that sometimes it all felt so fake and alien to him that he was disgusted by the whole charade? 

How could he admit to his wife, the mother of his child, that sometimes he didn’t love her, that he felt nothing but numbness, that he had to gather up all his strength to play the part and it left him exhausted? What kind of monster was he?

“Stress, I suppose,” he said, hearing how inadequate it sounded on the back of such a long silence. “You know how I get sometimes. And with tonight being so important, on top of me being a fish out of water in those kinds of get-togethers… I suppose it made it especially bad tonight.”

He smiled at her, bashful, reassuring, aware that he was using his work tricks on his own wife. She stared at him for a long moment and Luke knew that she was debating arguing further; he wasn’t sure if he could handle that, so he played the only card he had left.

“There might be… one more thing,” he added, hesitantly, quietly. “Not strictly something I should say, really, but considering it’ll affect you as much as me…”

Eloise blinked at him. “What, Luke?”

“Hector pulled me aside tonight,” Luke continued, deliberately not mentioning the fact that had happened at the end of the night. “He said nothing is official yet, but it’s as good as done. I’ve got the position. We’ll be heading out to Colombia at the beginning of the new year, most likely.”

He saw several things flicker over her face in quick succession: pride, and then excitement, and then doubt, and then worry, and finally back to pride again. She smiled and then grinned fully at him, standing up and throwing her arms around him, kissing him on the lips.

“Well, that’s wonderful!” she said, cupping his face. “Why are you so worried? This is good news, Luke. I’m so proud of you!”

She kissed him again and Luke pulled her close by the waist, pushing away all the thoughts from earlier with furious determination.

_I love you, I love you, I love you,_ he thought, his eyes squeezed closed, as though if he thought it loudly enough it would drown out everything else.

**Vanessa**

They looked at one another breathlessly as though they were each in as much disbelief as the other. For a moment it looked as though it would dawn on them as a horrible mistake, which in hindsight Luke realised it probably should have, but then Vanessa let out a soft giggle followed by several more, until she and Luke were both in hysterics, their hands clasped over their mouths.

“Oh my God,” Vanessa whispered, once she could trust herself to stay quiet. “I cannot believe we did that. I have not been this trashy since university.”

She edged past him to the mirror, fixing her clothing and hair as quickly as she could. Luke belatedly caught up with her, thought found his hands were trembling as he redid his belt, and his thoughts were still scattered, collecting just enough that he could feel the enormity of what they had just done sinking in. He was Second Secretary to the British Embassy, for God’s sake – he couldn’t be doing such compromising shit as cheating on his wife in a bathroom. Especially not when the woman he was with was the fucking wife of the _First_ Secretary to the British Embassy. Really he should be declaring this right now and never seeing her again, but what actually happened was that he kissed Vanessa back when she slipped past him with a farewell kiss, kissed her too hard and for too long and let his hands wander, found himself wishing he was younger before they parted with another giggle. Then she was gone and Luke was left staring at himself in the mirror, at his tousled hair and red cheeks and guilty eyes, wondering how he would ever look Eloise in the face again.

“You idiot,” he muttered, turning the tap on and splashing his face with cold water. “You fucking idiot. Why can’t you just be happy? Why can’t you realise how lucky you are?”

Even as he said the words he knew he would do it again. Of course he would. He had cheated on every other woman he had been with, if not physically than at least emotionally. Why has he thought Eloise would be any different? He should have let her go too, let her get the hell out like Bethany or Janie. Hell, in a way he had even treated Deborah better than he had treated her, and Deborah had been nothing but awful and had cheated on him to boot, as he’d later found out. This was just how he was wired; empty on the inside, riding the high until monotony set in, and then bailing and doing it all over again with someone new. If it hadn’t been Vanessa it would have been someone else. Vanessa at least loved him back, for now.

And he did love her. He loved Eloise too, of course he did – he had infinite reserves of love, even if it didn’t look that way. But he knew what he was, and this would be easier for all of them, providing Eloise never found out. 

“You’re good at keeping secrets,” he told himself, shutting off the tap. “For God’s sake. You’re a fucking spy.”

**Gail**

Several years and everything he deserved later, Luke sat next to Hector in a basement somewhere in London and listened as Gail’s husband told them the story of the Russian man whose family Luke would die trying to save. He took notes and he glanced at Hector and occasionally he would allow himself to look at Gail, to play the same game that had got him into so much trouble before. He already knew she was the kind of woman he could spend hours talking to – she was intelligent and articulate and held her own, the looks she gave Luke when he accidentally let his gaze linger for too long letting him know exactly where he stood. Perhaps the thing Luke loved her for the most was her loyalty; she stood by Perry with a sense of duty that Luke didn’t think existed outside of novels, the whole time not losing a shred of her autonomy. She was forgiving, too, hesitantly so but forgiving nevertheless – Luke had a spy’s eye and a cheater’s eye, and he knew what had caused the guilt that radiated from Perry in waves.

“Is Luke your real name?” Gail asked one morning, in a brief moment where it was just the two of them. “Or, I suppose you can’t tell me, huh?”

There had been a time here Luke might have given her some kind of answer, thrown her a bone as a connection point so they would have room for some kind of interaction, something Luke would be able to use to get him through the long nights alone again. Maybe he had finally learned, or perhaps he just no longer had the energy, a forty-something year old with a failed marriage all of his own making, but he found he had no desire to do any of the usual things.

Instead he just smiled, distantly, politely, and waited until Hector bounded through the door a minute later.

**Yvonne**

Yvonne knew Luke was in love with her and she was surprisingly good about it. Luke supposed she had to be, really, considering they lived and worked together almost constantly – it was the exact kind of situation that Luke’s imagination had always dreamed of, a faux domestic one where he could really create a picture of what their life might be like together. From what he could tell they would have been able to work something out. Between their tired chatting over breakfast, their comfortable silence as they worked, their informal movie nights when they just needed a break… it was a taste of what could have been that was equal parts comforting and cruel. Luke knew nothing good would come of his allowing himself to pretend, because it wouldn’t be long until he was wishing for more and gnawing a new hole in himself, but the habit was engrained into him and he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to.

“Why do you do it to yourself?”

It was late evening and Ollie was absent, resulting in Yvonne and Luke eating one of his excellently prepared meals – left in the fridge with painstaking instructions stuck to the lid – as just the two of them. It was dark outside and the occasional sound of the cars passing by reminded Luke of his daydreams on the bus, except now he was only a superficial step closer and he had squandered his real chance when he had decided to fuck his boss’s wife in a bathroom in the full knowledge he wouldn’t stop until they were caught. 

“Do what?” he asked, and Yvonne gave him a knowing look.

“Let yourself play mummies and daddies when I’ve told you it’s never going to happen.”

Luke gave a small smile as if to say _you got me there,_ but he knew his sadness had bled into it. Yvonne returned the smile, sympathetic, but Luke nodded.

“Point taken,” he said, laughing hollowly.

“You’re a good friend, Luke,” Yvonne said softly. “Don’t ruin things for yourself because you want more. Whatever happened to you, whatever hole you’re trying to fill, this isn’t the way to go about it.”

Luke winced, wondering if he was really that transparent and knowing all the while that he was.

“I know,” he said eventually. “I’m sorry. But trust me, I know.”

Yvonne reached over and patted his hand, and for a moment the urge to confess everything was overwhelming. Luke swallowed it down. She was right. He had had everything he had ever wanted with Eloise and he had thrown it in her face and broken her heart. Just the fact that she still spoke to him was a miracle; the fact that she seemed open to hearing him out an even bigger one. Her only request was that he have something to tell her, something solid, and over the months with Yvonne, with Gail, with Dima and Tamara, he worked it out.

All his life he had been dealing in extremes. All his life he had strived for perfection, because only that would have silenced the doubts in his mind for good. He had been so focused on what was missing that he hadn’t realised what he had; he had been so convinced that he wouldn’t be truly happy until that missing part of him had been filled in for good. He had refused to accept that life came in shades; that it could be good as well as bad, that he could feel empty but still adore the woman who had stood by him longer than anyone else had – the only woman who had fought for him. He had been selfish and greedy and almost ruined the best thing he had, and by the grace of God a part of Eloise remembered the laughing couple that had gotten engaged at the top of the stairs on Regent Street.

He would make it up to her. He would do anything for her. He would earn her trust back, he’d be a dad to Ben, he would finally grow up. If he was going to make it with anyone it would be Eloise, and in the brief split second before the aircraft was fully engulfed in flames it was that thought that brought Luke comfort – that had the universe been kinder, they would have done.


End file.
